I am currently finishing a monograph on late medieval manuscripts and their treatment from the medieval period to the modern day. ‘Working Theories of the Late Medieval Book: Manuscript Study in a Digital Age’ explores the figurative, interpretive and theoretical possibilities of manuscript study, with a particular focus on the works of Geoffrey Chaucer, vernacular romance, bookmaking recipes, The Book of Margery Kempe, The Book of Sir John Mandeville, and Thomas Hoccleve’s Series. Drawing on contemporary theory, this project looks to position manuscript studies in relation to the fields of media archeology and critical infrastructure studies.

Publications

National Philology, Imperial Hierarchies, and the ‘Defective’ Book of Sir John Mandeville

2019

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Journal article

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The Review of English Studies: the leading journal of English literature and language

This article examines when and how the ‘Defective’ version of the Book of Sir John Mandeville came to be called ‘defective’. It describes the use of this name by Sir George F. Warner in an edition produced in 1889 for the elite bibliographic society the Roxburghe Club. Drawing on recent work in disability studies, it argues that the philological use of ‘defective’ be read in conjunction with its broader use in the elaboration of hierarchies of class, race, and gender. Far from a neutral descriptor, ‘defective’ provides a compelling example of the imbrication of medieval studies, imperialism, and Social Darwinist principles in the late nineteenth century. The article closes with the call not only to rename the ‘Defective’ version the ‘Common’ version, but also for a broader reappraisal of this apparently discrete version of Mandeville’s Book. However, it also argues that amid the increasing marketisation of higher education and the concomitant insecurity of academic labour, digital editing does not provide a straightforward answer to the question of how best to map and display the complex textual history of Mandeville’s Book.

Penda's Fen, Geoffrey's Archipelago

2019

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Chapter

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Of Mud and Flame A Penda's Fen Sourcebook

Exploring Penda's Fen, a 1974 BBC film that achieved mythic status.

Performing Arts

Climate, Power, and Possible Futures, from the Banks of the Humber Estuary

2019

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Journal article

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Open Library of Humanities

Written in Trees

2018

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Journal article

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postmedieval: a journal of medieval cultural studies

The medieval horticultural manual the Godfridus super Palladium directs its readers in the art of grafting and maintaining trees. The text was translated from Latin into Middle English in the fourteenth century by Nicholas Bollard, whose own treatise on planting and grafting is found alongside the super Palladium in a number of surviving manuscripts. These works seek, at least in part, to codify past practices and accumulated knowledge, rendering a future that is predictable and productive. Yet both the super Palladium and Bollard’s Craft of Grafting and Planting are replete with micronarratives of nonhuman matter that connect them to a range of natural philosophical and literary traditions. Many of these directives are also scalable: initially specific to trees and plants, they also resonate with contemporary and modern philosophical debates on temporality, the potential transformations of matter, and the thresholds and limits of life.